St. Louis: Rodger Brogdon final report

Rodger Brogdon Ok after crash at St. Louis
After two very successful days of qualifying that saw the "Pistonator"
Rodger Brogdon sitting in the ...

Rodger Brogdon Ok after crash at St. Louis

After two very successful days of qualifying that saw the "Pistonator"
Rodger Brogdon sitting in the #1 qualifying spot until the very last car
down track bumped him to #2, the Attitude Apparel/Racers Edge team unloaded
on Sunday ready to take on the rest of the Pro Stock filed at Gateway
International Raceway.

Round 1 of eliminations unfortunately ended with Rodgers Pontiac tripping
the finish line timers @ 6.722 second at 186 miles an hour with the car
on its side. After impacting the right hand wall (he started in the left
lane) and then flipping onto its roof, a fireball erupted as the fuel
cell spilled its remaining contents.

Rodger emerged from the car after the NHRA Safety Safari doused the fire,
and after being checked out by the onsite medical staff returned to the
pits stiff and sore, but OK.

"This wasn't my first on track incident," said Brogdon,
"and I know that with all the safety equipment we are required to
have that unless something really wacky happens, I'm perfectly safe
inside the car, I just have to wait for it to stop sliding. Then the fire
started up and I knew it was time to re-think this situation."

"When I hit my belts to get out of the car (hanging upside down) I
got hung up on the steering column. By then the Safari was there and they
already had the hoses going spraying the car to knock the fire down and
spraying me to make sure the fire didn't get to me. I'm stiff and
sore and I know it'll be worse tomorrow, but I'm ok and we're
already making plans for Atlanta."

"We've got last year's car we can bring out that's
already been updated and this car will be at (Jerry) Haas's chassis
shop tomorrow to get checked out. The engine looks to be ok and we've
got a couple of weeks to get everything put together and ready for
Atlanta. Obviously we have a little more work to do to get ready for the
next race than we normally do, but the guys we've got will make it
happen, they're too good of a crew to let something like this set us
back for long."

"Steve Kent (team owner) was on the phone before we got back to the
pits putting things in motion. We had a car this weekend that showed how
close we are to making the rest of the field real nervous, and we plan on
picking right back up where we left off when we get to Atlanta."

"I want to say thank you to everyone on the Safety Safari for their
quick response and getting me taken care of the way they did. I know that
as a driver we sometimes grumble about the things NHRA tech requires us
to do, but it is days like today that we realize why. Like I said
earlier, I wasn't concerned about the crash because I knew I'd be
OK, I just had to wait for the car to come to a stop."

"Someone asked me if it seemed like an hour while I was riding out
the crash...... I told them nope, it seemed like a mini-series."